Campaign Toybox
In a Nutshell: Stargate meets The Sweeney.
The Story: One cold October night in 1979, two young backpackers disappear on Salsibury Plain only to be found the next day, naked and suffering from terrible mental damage. Special Branch is called in from London, taking a gang of tough-as-nails South London coppers out of their daily routine of running down hardcore gangsters and nabbing IRA bombers and throwing them into the Cotswold countryside. They’re in for even more of a culture shock when they finally discover exactly what Stonehenge is there for: it’s a gate, sealing off a doorway to other worlds. When the last stone fell, the gate ceased to function, and now the door swings both ways. And not everything on the other side is friendly.
Style and Structure: Much like Stargate, this is perfect for one-off storylines as the gate can go anywhere you like, and any when you like. Pick any random adventure, even a dungeon crawl, and throw your PCs into it. You can play it military in style, with the PCs calling in or setting up a UNIT-like organization, turning the gate into a military crisis zone and powering up superscience devices to aid with controlling the journey. Or the PCs can keep it secret and be lone warriors against whatever they face. Either way, it’s important to make our side of the gate as exciting as the other side, and 1970s England works well for that. Make sure your coppers call the boss “guv” and wear houndstooth jackets when roughing up some local tossers or rumbling their manor. It may be useful not to have the gate so carefully patrolled because if beasties can get in unseen you can run gritty cop dramas or Cthulhu-esque monster hunts through the rain-soaked streets of London inbetween dimensional hops to Yuggoth, Arcadia and Toon Town.
PCs and NPCs: Besides tough coppers, you can have scientists, military types, even local villagers who have always known something weird were goon on up thar. Expert professors from Oxford or Cambridge will no doubt be useful, as might local Druids or other magically-aware types. Got a player who likes to be something weird? Have him come through from his world into ours. NPCs can include everyone in the surrounding area and every person in the police and military of England, if not the world.
Plots and Villains: This is wide open but given the English feel, faerie types spring to mind. They can be overused however, and having something resembling other ancient myths and cultures might be more fun: what if Thorian warriors arrive, with their lightning hammers and Chariots of the Gods? On the other hand, maybe the aliens are more like the aliens of Alien or The Thing? With IRA terror on the rise, shapeshifters and shadowy killers could drive paranoia sky high. Once again, don’t forget people on our side of the gate. Margaret Thatcher just get elected, racial tensions and poverty are on the rise and punks and rastas are clashing with police in bloody street riots. Perhaps there are folks who think England needs a Jolly Good War to teach young folks a lesson – and may start provoking our alien visitors to get such a result. Of course, said visitors may need no prompting at all, which just makes every bad guy’s job easier.
Sources: There is absolutely bucketloads of information about Stonehenge out there, both real and imagined. Conspiracy theorists of various degrees of imagination have provided all sorts of fun ideas on who built it, and why (check out the Book of Thoth forums for some superb stuff), while the actual facts themselves are pretty startling on their own (start with wikipedia or Britannia.com). Historian Geoffrey of Monmouth claimed that Merlin had giants help him build the thing with stones from Africa. Stone circles as gateways in time and space is discussed in such works as the young adult novel Merryll of the Stones, the fourth Harry Potter book and Doctor Who, as well as several books on fairies, including the works of Terry Pratchett. For England in the 1970s and 1980s, anything from the period will help; my personal favourites are the contemporary cop shows of the Sweeney or The Professionals. More recently made (and easier to get on DVD) is Life on Mars, which also involves time travel. Speaking of time travel, don’t forget to consult Stargate. Although the show varied in quality, even the weakest episodes were immensely plunderable for RPG sessions. Make like a rooster – suck seed.
RPGS: Stargate D20 springs to mind of course, and modern day settings running from Feng Shui and Buffy to Millennium’s End or GURPS Special Ops would be fine, but magic doors to other dimensions can add spice to almost any campaign using almost any game, as a spark of variety as a one-off or the basis of a whole series. Pick your favourite and go nuts.
